If I were building a product marketing organization from scratch, I’d consider it a fortunate opportunity. Most leaders inherit teams and work to mold them over time, which often involves a lengthy process of aligning team chemistry, developing skills, and dealing with unexpected challenges.
One of the biggest challenges in leading a product marketing team is managing the intersection between product management and sales. Success hinges on creating products that deliver measurable value to the market and making that value easy to understand, sell, and buy. However, products will always have feature gaps, and the salesforce might not be as disciplined as desired. Yet, you still need to create a product marketing organization that can thrive despite these imperfections.
Here are some essential elements to think about when establishing a product marketing organization:
1. Give Your Team a Clear Mission
Providing your team with a mission is crucial. It not only motivates them but also clarifies the team’s value to the organization. This mission keeps the team focused amid the chaos and helps set boundaries. A strong mission statement could be: “To make the value of our products easier to market, sell, and buy compared to our competitors.”
2. Structure Around Customers or Products
Many product marketing teams mirror the product management structure. I prefer a customer-first approach where the team focuses on market and customer needs rather than the products themselves. Product marketers should know their products well, but not to the extent of a product manager. Instead, they should be experts on why the market needs the product and how to convey that effectively.
3. Vertical or Horizontal Market Focus
Part of the team should focus on the main industries that drive most of the revenue. Tailoring messages to specific industries increases relevance. While the high-level strategy differs by industry, the operational needs across industries often overlap, simplifying product-level messaging.
4. Set Realistic Guidelines with Sales
Consider sales as your primary customer. Establish clear, realistic guidelines that include scope, time, resources, and priorities. Product marketing should provide situational sales tools that cover the most common scenarios rather than creating endless one-off tools.
5. Complementary Roles with Product Management
Distinguish clearly between product management and product marketing roles. Product management focuses on what to build, whereas product marketing focuses on maximizing revenue from existing products. Product marketers should be market experts, feeding insights to product management, which often lacks the time for regular market research.
Bonus: Product Positioning
A critical aspect of product marketing is product positioning. It’s about creating a compelling conversation around your products, making them desirable and distinct from competitors.
Strategic Value of Product Marketing
Product marketing creates a compelling narrative around your products, mobilizing this narrative through various marketing platforms and sales channels. This drumbeat of activity builds awareness, supports sales, and constantly feeds the sales pipeline with quality leads. Effective product marketing not only enhances the product’s appeal but also instills confidence in the sales team.
Starting from scratch, the goal would be to make our products so appealing and well-positioned that they become the market’s envy.